February 10, 2014 AT 4:30 pm

Tron Costume Disc Upgrade Using LEDs

When Tron: Legacy was in theaters, Identity Discs were available everywhere. Instructables user cubeberg purchased one for his seven-year-old from the local big box store, but he was disappointed at the lackluster lighting effects. What does a maker do in this situation? Hack up the toy and improve it. He makes it clear that he’s not an engineer and only has so-so soldering skills; he thinks if he accomplished this, then anyone can do it. He gathered materials including LEDs, separated the disc and gutted it, and this is how he marked the disc for the new LEDs:

In order to make the new disc as movie-accurate as possible, we’re placing 16 leds in the inner ring (convenient since the LED chip we’re using breaks leds into segments of 8). The remaining 48 leds will go on the outer ring.

I found that the inner ring is about 40cm and we need 15 breaks – leaving 2 2/3 cm between each LED. I mostly eyeballed this section, but used a measuring tap used for clothing measurements to make things a little easier.

The outer ring is much simpler. We need to separate it into 48 segments. There are already 6 posts evenly spaced around the disc. Using your sharpie, make a large mark at each of these posts (6 marks). Then add a large mark in the middle of each post (12 marks). Then make a smaller mark between each of the large marks (24 marks). Then add a smaller mark between all of the marks (48 marks!).

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.